Summary and conclusions

In this paper, we first discussed the nature of routine and creative action, and that control decisions should be made in cortical planning modules.

We then discussed the basal ganglia loops and mapped these onto our system-level brain model.

We then discussed how initiation, monitoring and control of routine action could be achieved by providing the planning module with the ability to monitor a stream of routine action descriptions, and to allow this to flow or else to instead make creative actions.

We finally outlined in a neural level of description how different cortical layers and the thalamus might be involved in routinized mental action.